Next year’s occupancy budget is already taking shape, and most of it will be built on this year’s lease data. If that data carries an overcharge, a fee you didn’t owe or a missing record, next year’s budget carries it too. Across dozens or hundreds of locations, small errors add up quickly.
Here are five checks worth running before your numbers are final, each drawn from our work with multi-location tenants in fitness, healthcare, retail and automotive services.
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1. Audit your CAM charges
Next year’s CAM budget will be built on this year’s charges, so audit them first. Past reconciliations still inside their audit window can also be recovered, but only until that window closes.
A fitness chain with 225+ locations was paying CAM reconciliations with no way to verify them. We audited just two locations and recovered $95,250. One of the errors was a $24,941 roof repair charge, even though the lease excluded roof repairs from CAM.
Quick tip: Start with the locations with the highest CAM, and confirm each lease’s audit window.
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2. Clear ledgers and invoices before year-end close
Discrepancies left open at 12/31, or your fiscal year end, tend to get paid by default or carried into next year.
For a Midwest supermarket chain with nearly 200 stores, our team reviews about 100 invoices and landlord statements a month, checking each charge against the lease and escalating anything that doesn’t match. The client has noted the accuracy and quick turnaround, and its internal team now spends far less time on invoices.
Quick tip: Match every charge to the lease, and dispute anything that doesn’t match in writing.
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3. Tighten how rent gets paid
January rent comes due while many teams are on holiday, and some leases have rent increases that start 1/1. A missed change means a short payment or a late fee.
A national eye care provider with 700+ locations moved its rent payments to our team. We now pay more than $96 million in rent a year with zero late fees.
A national discount chain was still paying landlords by paper check. We moved more than 6,500 landlords to electronic payments, and in 2026 alone we’ve completed 707 EFT setups, about 71 a month.
Quick tip: Before January rent, confirm which increases start 1/1, verify any bank change request directly with the landlord, and move landlords still paid by check to electronic payments.
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4. Get your ASC 842 balances right at year end
Leases amended, renewed or extended this year may need to be remeasured, which changes the right-of-use (ROU) asset and lease liability. Holdovers need a clear treatment too. Miss these by 12/31, or your fiscal year end, and your balances will be off when auditors ask for your lease schedules.
For a healthcare linen services company with 92 properties and 660 equipment leases, we validate the lease data behind its monthly ASC 842 reporting. The client has extended its contract with us for many more years.
Quick tip: List this year’s modifications, renewals and holdovers, and confirm each one is reflected in your ROU and liability balances.
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5. Confirm your lease records are complete
Missing tax bills, renewal dates and amendments, along with duplicate records, turn into budget gaps and missed deadlines.
An auto service franchisee with nearly 500 service centers had no central view of its leases. We checked more than 600 records against source documents, corrected 150 errors and removed duplicates, cutting 700 records down to 500. We also entered more than 800 property tax bills that had never been recorded, and we now send a monthly report on upcoming expirations and renewal options. More than $4 million in monthly rent is now managed from accurate, audit-ready records.
Quick tip: For every lease with an option date in the next 18 months, confirm you have every amendment.
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Before your budget is final, let’s take a look
Some of these checks take an afternoon. Others take a few weeks. All of them cost less to do now than to find next year.
Request a complimentary review of your portfolio and a sample of your leases. Reach out to our lease administration team to set it up.
